Former World Footballer of the year, George Weah has received backing from former Liberian power house, Yommie Johnson for president ahead of a November 7 run-off vote between the former soccer star and current Vice President Joseph Boakai
Mr. Johnson took more than eight per cent of votes in the first round and his support is seen as a crucial boost for Mr. Weah, who won 38.4 per cent, shy of the 50.1 per cent needed to win outright in one round.
NEC chairman, Jerome Korkoya, said the commission had ordered 3,053,435 ballots, the same quantity printed for the first round of the elections.
NAN reports that a consignment of ballot papers for the election is expected to arrive in the country on October 28, the National Elections Commission (NEC) disclosed on Wednesday.
“We have lost trust in the government and we now need to regain that trust and the only way to regain that trust is through the actions of taking care of all of the people,” Haley told South Sudan’s Eye Radio.
She demanded that Kiir allow full and consistent humanitarian aid access and bring peace and stability to the country.
She said she pushed a timeline for Kiir to act, but declined to elaborate.
Nhial Nihal, a senior adviser to Kiir, said the president told Haley his government and a UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan had established “mechanisms that work jointly to improve and address the humanitarian problems.”
He also told reporters that Kiir said government troops “will also be observing a cessation of hostilities in order to create an atmosphere for dialogue.”
The civil war was sparked by a feud between Kiir, a Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer.
It has plunged parts of the world’s youngest nation into famine and forced a third of the population, some 4 million people, to flee their homes.
A fragile peace deal broke down in 2016 and Machar fled the country. He is being held in South Africa to stop him stirring up trouble, sources told Reuters in December.
Haley had to cut short a visit to a camp in Juba, where UN peacekeepers are protecting some 30,000 displaced people, after hundreds of rowdy pro-Machar protesters blocked nearby roads, yelling “Salva Kiir is a killer” and “Welcome USA.”
Protesters held a large sign that read “South Sudan Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and refugees love President Trump, the peacemaker and supporter of human rights.”
A spokeswoman for the UN mission said the protest “started to gain momentum after (Haley) left, IDPs became upset that she was not able to meet with them.”
The previous U.S. administrations of President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama were heavily involved in the birth of South Sudan, which signed a peace accord with Sudan in 2005 and gained independence in 2011.
(Reuters/NAN)
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